Poetry, movie critiques, book reviews, critiques of political-economy, conceptual formulations for socialism/communism, short stories, speculations about a possible classless society and critiques of class society in general are what form the content of "Wobbly Times".

Saturday, March 28, 2009

The fact
that 10% of Australian households own 45% of Australia's wealth while 50% of
Australian households own only 7% of Australia's wealth is information which is
unknown to most Australian workers.

The
source is this inequality lies in the wages system. Workers create the wealth
in the economy. Of course they use wealth lying dormant in Nature to do it, for
example in mining. Workers sell their skills for defined periods of time to
employers to create the wealth of society which is then measured in the sales
of goods and services, aka the GDP. The price workers get for their sale on the
labour market is called wages.

More than
120 years ago, workers came out in the streets of Chicago to demand the 8 hour
day. Productivity since 1886 has skyrocketed. Workers deserve more free-time.
Workers have earned it. Workers today should have a four hour day with no cut
in pay. Shorter work time could solve many of what seem to be today's
unsolvable problems: climate change, unemployment, child care, social alienation,
cultural development and the overproduction of garbage polluting the
environment.

About Me

I was born in Binghamton, New York in 1945. I was raised in eight of the United States of America and two foreign countries: Panama and Japan. I served honourably in the United States Marine Corps from 1963-1967 and then took part in anti-war activities in Haight-Ashbury and Michigan State University. After graduating from MSU, I worked at the University Library and joined the Socialist Labor Party of America, running for Congress on the SLP ticket in 1974. Subsequently, I moved to Palo Alto, California to work on the SLP’s newspaper, “The People”. In the late 1970s, I was employed as a wage-labourer at Stanford University Libraries, where I was involved in union organizing activities. On May 5, 1990, I joined the Industrial Workers of the World. I quit being a member of the IWW on April 5, 2012. On December 7th, 2000, I took early retirement from Stanford and flew to Perth, Australia to write my novel WAGE-SLAVE’S ESCAPE and other short literary excursions. I now live permanently in Australia with my wife, Jennifer. We study free-style martial arts together. Both of us are engaged in the creation of literature.